Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Peter Robinson ·
Dec 28, 2011 at 12:17am
Yes, I've been skeptical of Mitt Romney from the start, and as recently as a couple of hours ago I expressed my skepticism all over again--see below, "The (Thin) Case for Romney." All of which quite understandably tests the patience of even some of my closest friends here on Ricochet, including, for example, JamesOfEngland and ParisParamus.
But jeepers. Just get a load of "Seven Reasons Why Romney's Electability is a Myth." I can't quite agree with the charge that the press has given Romney a free ride, but the author makes some points worth pondering--and makes me look like a pussycat by comparison.
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Jan '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Ol' Willard certainly has been given a nearly free ride by the press and, given his peevishness during and after Bret Baier's interview, I wonder if he'll be able to weather the storm if and when it hits him.
Mar '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
John makes a fairly damning case. But consider that equally damning cases can be made as follows:
1) Variations on #1,2,5,7 can be made to apply to Gingrich and one or two other points not listed. 1990s government shutdown=”GOP obstructionism”, reliving Clinton scandal=”wrong priorities for Americans out of work”; there's his personal life and being run out of office in disgrace by his own party, and his service as a guttersnipe lobbyist, etc.
2) Variations on #1,3,4,6,7 can be made to apply to rootin’ tootin’ GWB-lite uber-southern uber-conservative-Christian unable to articulate an argument whilst stumbling and stammering Rick Perry. He fails the Peter Robinson “rally and persuade” test.
3) Variations on #1,3,5,6 can be made to apply to Huntsman, and he fails the “Does your candidate talk down in a smarmy manner to his own voters” test.
4) Various other candidates fail the “Is your candidate a crackpot?” test.
Mar '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
It's not a question of if. The when will be when he is nominated - they are holding off until then.
As Mr Hawkins suggests, the attacks will be on Mr Romney's "evil" Capitalism and "weird" Mormonism. Mr Alinsky has already written the script and the peasants have occupied the streets - or at least they will resume in the spring.
Apr '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Hawkins is well rebutted by this piece at Hot Air:
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/12/27/is-romneys-electability-a-myth/
Edited on Dec 28, 2011 at 1:19amApr '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
It's good, but understated.
1) People don't like Mitt:
This is based on polling numbers for first choice. Given that he also polls well for second choice,this is terribly weak.
2) He's lost an election
This is true; so did everyone else who ran against Senator Kennedy. Hawkins also makes the point that he was unpopular by the time he left (although he retained the ability to defy a veto proof majority through persuasion until the last year). It is my sense that everyone who cuts spending suffers for it politically; I do not believe that Mitt will be a terribly popular President, either. His cause, spending, is one that people pay much more lip service to than have genuine affection for. See, for instance, affection amongst people of almost all political stripes for Bush 41 as compared with Reagan.
3) He lost in Southern states to Huckabee in 2008. If Huckabee was his likely opponent in the General, he'd lose them again. In head to heads against Obama, he does better than Newt or Perry in Virginia and other "swing" Southern states.
Edited on Dec 28, 2011 at 2:46amApr '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
4. The media have been friendly to him.
As anyone who recalls him as the dedicated media hate figure of 2007/ early 2008 will recall, this is decidedly not the case. You think that conservatives hate the idea of a white-bread boringly stable candidate? Imagine if your job was to sell stories every day. There are all kinds of hit pieces out there, they just tend to be pathetic (this is one of my favorites). It turns out that he's simply very difficult to attack on personal grounds, and portrays his frequently radical ideas in boring aww shucks language. His unassailable personal life will not melt away in the general, and nor will his tendency to talk softly, which has only been enhanced this cycle.
5: Wealth: It's true that there are photos of him with money in his pockets celebrating his first deal. And maybe I'm wrong about how many people have analogous pics of their first proper paycheck (it's not that much money that's being used as props). It's still a: a terribly weak line of attack and b: one will suit the vastly more personally profligate Obama.
Apr '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
5b: Bain's firing people. It's true that he needs to be clear about what he's done with companies that people know, but the general will focus a lot more media power on that. Staples, Dominos, Sports Authority, and others are companies people are familiar with and know from personal experience hire people. Bain is, on balance, an overwhelmingly positive story. Plus, even just knowing he's a banker (which seems to be what most people think), they still like him in the head to heads against Obama.
6. Mormon.
In deep blue states and deep red, this is a problem. Not so much in purple. Evangelical Christians will like him more when liberals spend months telling america how ridiculously Christian mormons are.
7. Flip flopper.
This is the overwhelmingly dominant line of attack against him, both Democrat/ media and GOP primary rival. Who expects to bust a myth about Mitt's electability with this? Who might believe the myth and not have heard this charge? How is it not entirely baked in?
Feb '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Here's another issue for Romney:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2011/12/romneys-emerging-secrecy-problem/
From that link:
"Mitt Romney has an emerging secrecy problem. For someone whose primary claim to the nomination is that he has nothing to hide, he sure acts like he has something to hide.
First, there was the cleansing of Massachusetts state records from his time as Governor, including the purchase by 11 Romney aides of their hard drives upon leaving office and the purging of state computers. None of this apparently was illegal, but it certainly raised questions about why Romney went to such lengths."
Expect to hear more about this from the Obama campaign immediately after Romney wraps up the nomination, assuming he does.
Oct '10
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Ann Althouse:
Oct '10
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Mitt Romney has been under scrutiny from Conservatives (looking for more dirt) and Romney-haters since day one, unlike other GOP candidates.
Feb '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
James Of England
It's good, but understated.
1) People don't like Mitt:
This is based on polling numbers for first choice. Given that he also polls well for second choice,this is terribly weak.
This is the definition of "lack of enthusiasm". I'm sure most Republicans will trudge to the polls to vote for their second choice- but some won't. In the aggregate this will be hundreds of thousands of voters and quite likely will cost the GOP some close races.
Plus, I doubt independent voters will particularly enthused about a candidate that is every Republican's unenthusiastic second choice. Or else we'd have had a president Dole.
Feb '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
I'm glad you've noticed that Romney hasn't been too clear about what he did at Bain. But I really doubt the general election will shine much positive attention on this story.
I suspect if Romney thought it would he'd be talking more about it now, instead of burying it in a partial paragraph on his campaign website. Worse, the first story I heard about Romney that made me dislike him was about a factory he closed, shipped to China, and began exporting back to the US.
If you think this is popular with voters I suggest you guess again. I suspect Romney understands this, hence the non-highlighting of Bain for this campaign.
Obama won't be so kind. I expect we'll hear a lot more about the people Bain kicked to the curb, and they won't have overwhelmingly positive things to say about Romney.
May '10
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
I just want to put out there the idea that the Internet has changed what a candidate, even a winning candidate, looks like at various points in time; pre-primary, during primary, general election, even after winning. We now know much more about a candidate, and much sooner; and for that matter, the demands on candidates to produce campaign "content" are much greater. At this point, I suspect, we are comparing Romney (actually, all of the candidates) to candidates in prior election cycles and are disappointed. We can't know how we would feel about a Reagan, or Coolidge or anyone else if everything was on YouTube in your pocket. But remember: We're also greatly more disappointed (and disgusted) with the incumbent for the same reason. As long as that's true, things will turn out fine; perhaps even better.
May '10
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Xennady
Obama won't be so kind. I expect we'll hear a lot more about the people Bain kicked to the curb, and they won't have overwhelmingly positive things to say about Romney.
No doubt. So the election will have to be, in part, a Capitalism 101 lesson for America, in which Romney (and hopefully his surrogates like us) explain that efficiency, sustainability, and profitability require making an enterprise lean -- that is, making tough decisions about budgets and personnel -- and that this process isn't even the teeniest bit immoral or unwise. (For a preview, see Romney's response in the last debate to Gingrich's Bain attack. Effective, I thought.)
The alternative, I guess, is to concede to Obama his distortions and deceptions -- to embrace them even, as Gingrich and Perry have done. No thanks.
Aug '10
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Oh no! Romney has weaknesses!
I guess we'd better nominate the guy without any...
Apr '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Xennady
I'm glad you've noticed that Romney hasn't been too clear about what he did at Bain. But I really doubt the general election will shine much positive attention on this story.
I suspect if Romney thought it would he'd be talking more about it now, instead of burying it in a partial paragraph on his campaign website.
Obama won't be so kind. I expect we'll hear a lot more about the people Bain kicked to the curb, and they won't have overwhelmingly positive things to say about Romney. ·
Romney's strategy is not to work hard on making the news (he works hard at retail politics, and qualifies for state ballots, but he's not a bomb thrower). In the primaries, if he pushed Bain as an issue, others would feel obligated to attack it. As it is, only Gingrich has gone the full Michale Moore, with Cain and Perry making shallow "Wall Street" references. When Obama focuses on it, which he will, Romney will be better off if the anti-capitalist attacks seem anti-American, which requires it not to be too big a primary issue.
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
There is one other problem vis-a-vis Romney's electability: Romneycare and his initial response to Obamacare: "Repeal the bad; keep the good."
Hostility to Obamacare -- hook, line, and sinker -- is the principal advantage that the Republicans have in the upcoming election. People hate the individual mandate, and rightly so. It means that for the first time in American history the government has the right to tell them how to spend their own money, and it opens the way for further regimentation along the same lines.
Romney embraced the individual mandate in Massachusetts. He endorsed it in 2010 as one of "the good" elements in Obamacare.
He is not in a position to make the most powerful argument that we have.
Apr '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Xennady
James Of England
It's good, but understated.
1) People don't like Mitt:
This is based on polling numbers for first choice. Given that he also polls well for second choice,this is terribly weak.
This is the definition of "lack of enthusiasm". I'm sure most Republicans will trudge to the polls to vote for their second choice- but some won't. In the aggregate this will be hundreds of thousands of voters and quite likely will cost the GOP some close races.
By this metric, 1980 Reaganites were unenthusiastic, but at least it makes a change from pure Pauline Kaelism.
John Marzan: Ann Althouse:
"But what I'm noticing, after all these months of mushy complaints about Romney's lack of "core values," is that there is no dirt on Romney. The criticisms about him are utterly abstract: he seems "plastic" or wishy-washy. Why do people keep saying things like that? I think it's because that's all they can say. The man has lived a blameless, virtuous life. He's the man who's never done anything wrong. Do you have a problem with that? "
Althouse's whole post there is well done.
May '10
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Romney (and hopefully his surrogates like us)
Yet another effect of the Internet world we now live in is that this is so much more important. Chris Christie and bloggers and FB may get whoever gets the nomination across the line. Is this a sign of weakness for, say, Romney? Maybe, but the last guy was the Great Campaigner...
Edited on Dec 28, 2011 at 7:39amApr '11
Re: Me? Why, By Comparison, I'm Just a Pussycat
Paul Rahe: There is one other problem vis-a-vis Romney's electability: Romneycare and his initial response to Obamacare: "Repeal the bad; keep the good."
Hostility to Obamacare -- hook, line, and sinker -- is the principal advantage that the Republicans have in the upcoming election. People hate the individual mandate, and rightly so.......
Romney embraced the individual mandate in Massachusetts. He endorsed it in 2010 as one of "the good" elements in Obamacare.
He is not in a position to make the most powerful argument that we have. ·
He's not a good guy to make it to you, since you don't.... I honestly don't know how to characterize your indifference to the state/ federal, constitutional/ unconstitutional divide without being accused of mischaracterizing you. If I said that you didn't consider the difference huge, I hope that that's OK.
To most Americans, though, respect for the Constitution is important, as is the "if your state doesn't want a mandate, it shouldn't have it" argument. Tyranny in Boston is an issue, but a secondary one for most Vegas residents.
FWIW, Newt currently takes a pure constitutional argument, too, still endorsing federal mandate equivalents this month.